PHP on Windows has come along way in the past few years. It used to be a chore to get PHP to work properly on IIS. Not so, anymore.

In the past I’ve recommended PHP ISAPI for IIS when using threaded applications and accelerators like eAccelerator, xCache and APC. APC now includes support for FastCGI (Non-Thread Safe). To install PHP 4 – 5.2.x ISAPI, see my previous post: How to install PHP ISAPI on Windows 2008 IIS7 x64.

With PHP 5.3.x, the ISAPI dll has been removed for Windows. In order to use it, you’ll need to compile it yourself. There is a big push to use FastCGI on IIS, and with good reason – the performance has increased dramatically. Since most web applications (blogs, forums, CMS) do not require a Thread Safe install of PHP, FastCGI is the fastest and most stable option around.

PHP 5.3 for Windows is now compiled with either VC6 or VC9. VC9 should be used with IIS and VC6 should be used with Apache 1 or 2. For the VC9 versions you will need the Microsoft 2008 C++ Runtime (VC x86, VC x64, even though you are installing 32-bit PHP, install the correct version of VC++ for the version of Windows that you have).

When installing multiple versions of PHP with PHP Manager, each install can have a different PHP.ini and set of extensions installed and enabled. Within IIS, you can have a different version of PHP enabled for each site.

1. Download and Install PHP Manager for IIS 7/7.5. (http://phpmanager.codeplex.com/releases/view/59970) Even though PHP is 32-bit, install the version of PHP Manager that matches your install of Windows (x86 or x64).

2. Download and Install PHP 5.3.x for Windows VC9 (Non-Thread Safe). (http://windows.php.net/download/) You can use the installer or zip package. I’d recommend using the installer package if this is your first install, as it will set the PATH for your PHP install in Windows. If you are adding a second version or upgrading PHP, download the zip package and simply unzip it. If you plan to use multiple versions of PHP at the same time, I’d recommend naming your directories with the PHP version, ie: C:\php_5.3.5\.

3. In PHP Manager (IIS Manager -> Server Name -> PHP Manager), click on “Register New PHP Version” and browse to where you unzipped the PHP files. Select the php-cgi.exe file and click OK. Once you have registered the PHP module, you’ll need to configure the PHP.ini. This can be done in Notepad or within PHP Manager (Manage All Settings). For most basic installs, the default PHP.ini will suffice. If you are using a MySQL database, you’ll have to enable the MySQL or MySQLi extension. Go to IIS Manager -> PHP Manager -> PHP Extensions -> Enable or disable an extension. Click on php_mysql.dll and/or php_mysqli.dll and under Actions on the right side bar, click Enable.

4. If you are using Windows x64, you’ll need to set your application pool settings to allow 32-bit PHP to function. If you are using 32-bit Windows, skip this step. In IIS Manager -> Application Pools -> Right-Click on the website’s application pool (or Default if you haven’t set one up yet) and select Advanced Settings. Set “Enable 32-bit applications” to TRUE. Click OK. This spawns the App Pool in 32-bit mode, so if you have other modules that need to be run in 64-bit mode, best to separate the website into two App Pools: one 32-bit and one 64-bit.

5. If you want to install multiple versions of PHP, all you need to do is register each version using PHP Manager. You can click on each individual website and select a specific version of PHP to run. Remember to modify the PHP.ini of each version you register. If you get CGI errors when trying to view a webpage, make sure cgi.force_redirect = 0, or it is commented out in the PHP.ini.

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Many content management systems and forums were originally created using the latin1 character set and the latin1_swedish_ci collation in MySQL. The problem many of these systems are facing today is the growing demand for multi-language content using special characters that cannot be accurately represented in the latin1 character set. This is where utf8 comes in.

The problem with simply converting a database from latin1 to utf8 is in the data itself. When you convert a database or table to a different character set or collation, it does not convert the content held within the tables. What happens is users end up with ‘strange’ characters in their data.

You can prevent this by taking steps to protect the data before you convert the database or tables.

An overview of the steps:

1. Backup the database. No, really, do it.
2. Alter the string field types to their binary equivalents in all tables. This will protect the data during conversion.
   • VARCHAR to VARBINARY
   • CHAR to BINARY
   • LONGTEXT to LONGBLOB
   • MEDIUMTEXT to MEDIUMBLOB
   • TEXT to BLOB
   • TINYTEXT to TINYBLOB
3. Convert the database and tables from latin1 to utf8 character set and latin1_swedish_ci to utf8_general_ci collation.
4. Convert the binary field types back to their original string field types.
5. Backup the resulting database.
6. Finished

Ex. Generic convert column to BLOB from TEXT

Ex. Generic convert table to new character set

Ex. Generic convert database to new character set utf8

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WordPress has long had a feature that dynamically replaces standard characters with their more visually appealing (and perhaps more accurate) symbols. In some cases the formatting may not be desirable.

Last year I wrote a few articles on Exchange Server errors. The errors typically follow the form of 0xNumber, ex. 0x8000000F. What wordpress was doing was replacing the “x” in the error with a “times” or multiplication symbol. So 0x0 would show up as 0×0.

Dynamic Replace Active

Dynamic Replace Inactive

My concern was that search engines DO distinguish between “x” and the symbol for multiplication. So when people were searching for 0x8004011D my posts did not show up, but when searching for 0×8004011D or 8004011D they did. If you do a google search with the “times” symbol instead of an “x” for exchange errors, you will find many posts otherwise hidden from the world.

The last string of the regular expression below represents a case for when there is a character followed by an x and by another character without spaces. The x will be replaced with the special character for “times” or &# 215 ;

The characters in the image below are the symbols for replacement. Generally the quotes are not misleading to search engines.

The following dynamic string variable is found in the \wp-includes\formatting.php file. If you wish to remove all dynamic characters, simply delete both lines and your wordpress posts will render correctly.

$dynamic_characters = array
('/\'(\d\d(?:’|\')?s)/', '/(\s|\A|")\'/',
'/(\d+)"/', '/(\d+)\'/', '/(\S)\'([^\'\s])/', '/(\s|\A)"(?!\s)/',
'/"(\s|\S|\Z)/', '/\'([\s.]|\Z)/', '/(\d+)x(\d+)/');

 $dynamic_replacements = array
('’$1','$1‘', '$1″',
'$1′', '$1’$2', '$1“$2',
'”$1', '’$1', '$1×$2');

If you only want to remove the “x” replacement symbol ( × ) use the following lines in formatting.php in place of the originals.

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February 2011 Update: Click here if you are looking for Install instructions for PHP 5.3 on IIS 7/7.5.

With the release of Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7, Microsoft has included PHP5 FASTCGI support. ISAPI is still faster in my opinion, and if used correctly, very stable. PHP uses a 32-bit DLL so it will not work with an x64 system. There are several ports of PHP to x64, but all have proved to be unstable. Below I will outline the steps to install PHP 32-bit ISAPI on Windows 2008 x64 (and have it stable). Update: These instructions also work on Windows 2008 x86 (32-bit), just leave out steps 8 & 9.

1. Install the PHP4 or PHP5 package (32-bit) in C:\PHP or wherever you like. Only use the Windows installer from php.net if you do not need any extensions. I would recommend downloading the PHP zip package.
2. Update April 2010: The PHP VC6 x86 Thread Safe package is ideal for ISAPI on PHP 5.2.x. ISAPI is included in PHP 5.2.x, but not 5.3.x. If you want to use the 5.3.x branch with ISAPI you’ll need to compile it yourself! The VC6 Non-Thread Safe package is ideal for FastCGI implementations for 5.2.x. For 5.3.x branches, PHP has introduced VC9 packages, go here for 5.3.x install with VC9.
3. Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
4. Double-click “Handler Mappings” from the main IIS screen.
5. Click on “Add Script Map.”
6. Set up the handler mapping for c:\PHP\php5isapi.dll with extension *.php and check to allow the ISAPI extension and execution of scripts.
7. Double-click “ISAPI & CGI Restrictions” on the main IIS screen. Right-click on PHP and select “Edit Feature Settings” and check “Allow unspecified ISAPI modules.”
8. Right-click on the Default Application Pool (or the one you want to use if more than one) and select “Advanced Settings.”
9. Change the “Enable 32-bit Applications” to True. Click OK. This spawns the App Pool in 32-bit mode, so if you have other modules that need to be run in 64-bit mode, best to separate the website into two App Pools: one 32-bit and one 64-bit.
10. Restart the server.

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This is a quick tip to those who are having trouble installing or using WordPress on Windows Server with PHP.

Make sure in the PHP.ini file that the following is set:

If this is ON, WordPress will not allow you to login. It will spit out the following error:

“You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.”

You CAN have magic_quotes ON though, which is a different setting. The above setting is for data being pulled from a MySQL database for example.

Also make sure the following is set:

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